A Reformed Role Model: India, A Reluctant Rights Promoter

A Reformed Role Model: India, A Reluctant Rights Promoter

Ram Mashru

Ram Mashru is a freelance journalist and south Asia analyst. He
specialises in the politics, human rights and international relations of
India and has had articles published in a range of national and
international publications. He recently obtained an MSc in Contemporary
India (Area Studies), with distinction, from the University of Oxford
and read for a BA in Law from the University of Cambridge. Twitter:
@RamMashru

When it comes to human rights, India is a paradoxical case. On the one
hand she is praised as a regional standard-bearer, too-often celebrated
as ‘the world’s largest democracy’ and applauded for protecting rights
when her neighbours do not. On the other hand, the rights community is
unanimous in its condemnation of India’s human rights record. Brutal
oppression in Kashmir, state mandated ‘encounters’ (unlawful killings)
and the violations of the land rights of tribals are but three of the
recurring complaints made of India’s human rights protection.

The picture is more complicated in the realm of international relations.
For many, including Salil Shetty the Secretary General of Amnesty
International, India’s rising power status entails a greater
responsibility to promote rights internationally. Similarly, in a recent
high-profile piece Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director of Human
Right Watch, urged India to do more
to secure rights globally. Of course India should do as much as it can
to encourage rights protection beyond its borders, but such conclusions
fail to explain why India is a reluctant partner in the
international rights protection effort. Perhaps the most instructive
question is ‘is it in India’s interests to promote rights globally?’,
and regrettably the answer is ‘no’. This unfortunate response can be
explained by the politics of the developing world and India’s great
power strategies.

Developing World Diplomacy

In light of the terrible rights record of the Raj it may seem
puzzling that India has shied away from encouraging rights protection
elsewhere. But this very history of imperialism has elevated state
sovereignty to the status of a governing principle in the international
relations of the developing world. The valorisation of sovereignty
manifests in a reluctance to interfere in the domestic affairs of other
nations. This commitment to both sovereignty and non-interference
extends to international rights diplomacy and India, as Foreign
Secretary Shyam Saran insisted, is not in the business of ‘exporting
ideologies’.

Academics and activists must concede that conceptions of human rights
differ across regions. The writings of Rajni Kothari – one of India’s
leading thinkers and a former president of the country’s largest human
rights organization – is replete with dismissals of civil and political
rights as foreign ideals; ill-suited to India’s communitarian polity in
which collective rights – emphasizing social, economic and cultural
empowerment – are more important. Meenakshi Ganguly’s piece explains
India’s foreign policy is reluctant to follow Western-led initiatives
and prevailing understandings of human rights and international rights
advocacy both fall into this category.

India’s Great Power Politics: Doing Things Differently

Perversely, despite India’s reluctance on the issue of rights
promotion it enjoys a reputation as a regional exemplar: a functioning
democracy with enviable rights standards. This contradiction can be
reconciled by India’s efforts to be seen as a reformed role model, characterised by its non-imperialist foreign policy. The reformed approach is best evidenced by India’s reactive, not pro-active,
democracy promotion strategy. In 2005 India, through making a $10
million contribution, supported the establishment of the UN Democracy
Fund (UNDEF). But when speaking on UNDEF in 2006 Shyam Saran, India’s
Foreign Secretary, said ‘we do not believe in the imposition of
democracy. But if there is an interest in any country in our democratic
experience…we are ready to share this’.

A reformed role model approach, when applied to human rights
diplomacy, takes the form of a laissez-faire attitude to rights
promotion. Doing so is strategically prudent on several levels. First,
it avoids embarrassing questions about India’s domestic rights record.
Second it avoids the charge of hypocrisy that muscular rights promoters
face, that of enforcing rights abroad and abrogating them at home.
Third, the international relations of human rights are highly charged,
and India’s light touch on the subject avoids offending or alienating
potential strategic partners. Fourthly, reluctant rights promotion
maximises India’s freedom of activity: by holding other nations to
relaxed rights standards India grants itself equal licence to be
unconstrained by rights concerns. These strategic freedoms, many of
which are central to India’s great power project, combine to discourage
India from using its growing international influence to encourage rights
protection.

Conclusion

Certainly India’s potential to secure rights globally remains
unfulfilled. But human rights – highly contentious norms, often maligned
as ‘western’ ideologies – are difficult to reconcile with India’s
effort to be a reformed global role model. As a player of the politics
of the developing world and as an aspirant great power, India’s
diplomatic priorities are underpinned by notions of state sovereignty,
non-imperialism and strategic freedom, which each deliver foreign policy
advantages that trump any benefits that might accrue from rights
promotion.

As Meenakshi Ganguly laments, India’s refusal to promote rights is
detrimental to the world’s marginalized and oppressed. But as Stephen Hopgood,
a rights expert at SOAS, insists it is activists and not states will
make the difference. Faith should therefore be placed instead in India’s
social movements. The nationwide gender justice movement that emerged
following the horrific Delhi gang rape and persistent popular protests
against official corruption are testament to India’s capacity to mount
pro-rights collective action. It is through setting this example that
India can best lead in the effort to secure rights globally.

A version of this article was first published in the openGlobalRights section of openDemocracy.